The Other Side Of Love Is
by talkofcake
Summary: UPDATE: PART TWO. When the Admiral and the President are having a bad day, the entire fleet is too. AR, post-3x20 and spoilers through 4x10.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Other Side of Love Is

Author: Justine

Rating: MA

Category: smut, angst/romance with a kick of humor

Warnings: graphic sex, language

Spoilers: through 4x10

Summary: When the Admiral and the President are having a bad day, the entire fleet is too.

Notes: This is a WIP, but each part should also be able to be read as a standalone. It's a story I'll keep open for a while and keep adding on incidents as I feel like it.

Disclaimer: They're totally mine! (Am I am totally kidding.)

The Other Side of Love Is

By Justine

"_I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love." –J. August Strindberg_

- - - -

Part One

"Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable." –Bruce Lee

- - - -

There was a fire in CIC.

Their eyes were locked in a tangle of ferocity and behind those eyes laid fiery emotions, like flames, bursting through dilated pupils. Her skin reddened to a tint similar to her hair. He clenched his jaw and took on the appearance of a man of steel, the image that created a sense of fear among his soldiers. Laura Roslin was not a soldier, however, and in fact a woman of obstinance. That woman was not about to back down.

There was a fire in CIC.

It was growing out of control as the seconds ticked by. Valuable seconds, Saul Tigh mused as he watched the two leaders of humanity stand opposite of each other at the DRADIS console.

The flames curled upward among thousands of tiny sparks.

"Mr. Gaeta, begin jump," Adama ordered his officer who, in return, set his hand in position to commence faster than light procedures.

"No," Roslin countered. "Mr. Gaeta, belay that order." Her voice was low and cold.

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta looked as if he'd seen a ghost, beads of sweat dripping down his glistening face, his hand shaky as he withdrew it from the controls. He looked nervously back and forth between the President of the Colonies and the Admiral.

Seeing the officer's reaction, Adama grew even more furious. He took his eyes off of Roslin and took step after step towards Gaeta.

"Lt. Gaeta."

"Sir," he answered.

"Who is your senior officer?"

"You are, sir."

"And whose ship is this?" Adama pressed, leaning forward and meeting Gaeta's nervous gaze with his own, intense eyes.

"Yours, sir."

"Then what seems to be the problem? I gave you an order!" Adama barked. "Commence jump!" he ordered, "and if you fail to comply, you will be permanently relieved of duties."

"Mr. Gaeta," Roslin said. "We cannot take chances. Would you risk jumping the entire fleet into the hands of the Cylons?"

"Madam President, I'll have my marines escort you out of CIC," Adama said, his fists clenching at his side.

"What, are you staging another _coup_, Admiral?"

"This is ridiculous! Mr. Gaeta, _commence jump!_" he snapped.

Gaeta, still looking miserable, wavered his hand on the controls. His eyes met Roslin's, and then Adama's, and he silently wondered what he was thinking when he joined the military. Finally, as his eyes traveled back to Roslin, he released the controls and stood up.

"I'm sorry, sir, but the President's right. We have no reason to trust Kara Thrace, and I will not be held responsible should we end up in the middle of a Cylon fleet." His sudden outburst was surprising even to him, and he winced, waiting for Adama to order him back to his quarters or to rip the medals from his uniform, but instead, the Admiral leveled his gaze back on the President. He took a step towards her, their eyes piercing through the fiery mess that was their anger.

There was a fire in CIC.

- - - -

_Two hours earlier_

_Several days after the Trial of Gaius Baltar_

Beads of sweat followed by raking nails left moist, red trails down the skin of his back. His mouth captured her shoulder and he bit down, not quite hard enough to draw blood but enough to emit a moan from underneath him. He felt her legs tighten around his waist, encouraging him on. Her hands on his chest now, traveling to explore the flexing muscles in his arms as her hips arose to meet his with each thrust into her warm depths. She cried out and her walls began to tighten around him. She reached for her release—not just a physical release, but a mental struggle to let go of all the reasons he'd thrown her onto the rack in angry desire not long ago, her fists beating into his chest as she obstinately refused to forgive him for betraying her with his vote.

She would forgive him. And as felt her muscles continue to contract and the pleasure heighten within her, she realized she already had.

The receiver gave off a shrill buzz that caused both of them to be startled immediately out of their ecstasy.

"Godsdammit!" he yelled, his cock coming to a screeching halt inside of her.

"For frak's sake, Bill, just let it go. They'll call back later."

"No," he mumbled, pulling out and rolling off of her, "it's late at night, it could be important."

She let out an unsatisfied puff of air and shivered at the sudden loss of warmth. Reaching for the sheets, she watched him grab the receiver.

"What!" he barked. He grimaced then, glancing over at her auburn hair spilled over his pillow, her sweaty body wrapped in his sheets, and the scowl she was sending him with cold, green eyes. "I see," he finally said, listening to the speaker on the other end of the line. "I'll notify the President, yes. We'll be there shortly."

Bill slammed down the phone back into its proper place and turned back towards her.

"We appear to have stumbled across an abandoned vessel of some kind, possibly a road mark," he murmured, barely meeting her gaze before he jumped out of the rack and began pulling his pants on. "Or at least, that's what Kara says."

"Wonderful," she said sarcastically. Running her fingers through her hair and wiping off her sweaty forehead, she continued to scowl.

"You should be there too, just in case it is a road mark of some kind like she suspects," he stated simply while pulling one his tanks over his head. He looked around the room for any signs of the other one, and when his search turned up unsuccessful, he grumbled and reached for his jacket.

"Of course I should," she replied flatly.

They dressed in silence, the room still dark, both of their bodies humming with unsatisfied need and laden with all sorts of stickiness, a feeling that was rather displeasing. As Laura walked towards the hatch closely behind Bill, first stopping by the head to try to make herself look as if she hadn't just been getting an incredibly good angry frak (which she guessed would have been followed several hours later by an incredibly good makeup frak), the stickiness between her legs deemed itself to be an awkward feeling, especially when she was about to march right into CIC and attempt to put on her presidential façade.

"Did you…you know, finish?" he asked, retrieving his glasses from the table.

She stared at him dully and exhaled disgustedly.

"Finish?" she asked in disbelief. "What, you couldn't tell?"

"Well, I don't know, you seemed close. Forgive me, but I was a bit distracted by a certain _interruption_," he replied mockingly, moving towards the hatch.

"Oh my gods," she said, again in total disgust, and shook her messed auburn curls She donned her own glasses and crossed her arms. "Just go."

He sighed and wanted to protest but decided it best to just follow orders. After all, the two of them were exceptionally irritable and needed to wear a persona of professionalism before their subordinates.

The walk to CIC was wordless. She refused to walk by his side, keeping a step or two behind him, because while she had indeed already forgiven him over the trial, his one-track mind had just failed to give her what seemed to be the starts of a simply amazing orgasm.

_Frak you, Bill_. She was not going to be playing very nicely until he found a way to redeem himself.

- - - -

Thanks for reading! The next chapter will be up shortly.


	2. Chapter 2

The Other Side of Love Is

By Justine

"_I hated her now with a hatred more fatal than indifference because it was the other side of love." –J. August Strindberg_

- - - -

Part Two

"Love is like fire; it either consumes or purifies." –unknown

- - - -

"_We're going the wrong way!"_

And for some reason, Bill believed her.

Laura felt pain surge through her chest briefly, and she stumbled a bit, thankfully unbeknownst to anyone else in the room. She could picture the lump on her chest, her beating heart that would slowly cease existing as her life came to a close. She was a food item with an expiration date, and it agitated her that the poor analogy was actually quite accurate.

And then she realized, suddenly and without cause, that she was going to die, and when she did, Kara Thrace—whatever or whoever she was—would still be alive. These accusations (false accusations, as far as Laura was concerned) of what Earth was and how they could find it would be what the fleet would turn to as their salvation as their former leader's ashes met the coldness of space.

"Admiral, that _thing_ in the brig…get rid of it."

He looked at her steadily and without hesitation answered, "I can't."

- - - -

_Several days later_

"You know what I think your problem is?"

"Hmm?" Bill asked, throwing his head back as he downed the rest of his drink.

"You need to get laid."

Bill grumbled, glancing over at his friend of many years. Only on rare occasion in the past had he and Saul been drinking buddies, and those occasions usually consisted of something tragic going down in Bill's life—his divorce, Zak's death, etc. This time it wasn't so much the result of one tragic event but more a combination of lots of things piling themselves on Bill's shoulders. The woman he had at some unspecific point given his heart to was dying, the woman he loved like a daughter was most-likely a Cylon, and now, to top it off nicely, his son was leaving the military and moving to Colonial One where the father-son relationship they'd been slowly working on would probably fade into the scene of politics.

_"You are so afraid of being alone," _she'd said.

It was true.

_"And you're afraid to die that way," _he'd shot back.

Also true.

And it was truth that drove him to anger and to such harsh accusations, and for the first time since Laura Roslin had stolen his heart, he walked out on her, dunk, old, and angry. After a long, sobering walk through the halls of Galactica, going everywhere and yet nowhere in particular, it took him much longer than it should have to realize why their argument had hurt him so much, but instead of dwelling on that thought, he marched straight to Saul's quarters and found his friend with a bottle in hand welcoming him inside.

"Or," Saul continued, shattering Bill's thoughts and bringing him back to reality, "you _have_ gotten laid and now you're having serious relationship problems."

"Remind me to never drink and philosophize at the same time," Bill mumbled as he let his friend pour him up another glass. Saul chuckled.

"So which is it? Relationship problems or you just really, really need to get laid?"

"Laura," was all he replied, and in truth, there was no need to elaborate.

Saul nodded (refraining from mentioning the obviousness that was the Admiral and the President's relationship, even among the crew), proposed a wordless toast as their glasses clinked, and the two men drank in silence.

As Bill sensed their night of drinking was coming to close, he finished off the remainder of alcohol in his glass. Continuing his thoughts from much earlier that night, he mused with an inward smile how ironic it was that no matter how upset he was with Laura and would attempt to get away from her (possibly in the form of sharing a few too many drinks with Saul Tigh), she claimed his thoughts; she owned them.

He'd once told someone close to him that that's what love is: thoughts.

As he said good night to Saul and awkwardly stumbled out of the hatch, his inward smile grew to find his rugged physical features at the thought of loving Laura Roslin.

- - - -

Living together and being thoroughly pissed off at one another posed a few problems.

The first time this became evident was after Bill's night of drinking, sobering up, and drinking again when he stumbled through the hatch and went straight for the head, emptying his guts into the toilet. There was a grunt, a flush, and then the sound of running water as Laura laid in his rack facing the wall. She pulled the covers around her tighter, listening intently as he made his way around his quarters in the clumsy way that a drunken man would. She heard him brush his teeth, wash his face, then move out of the head and into his living area, discard his pants and don a robe, and then move towards his desk where he flicked on the lamp and sat down. Laura, already having a million reasons (well, maybe three at the least) to be pissed off at him, felt her annoyance boiling over at his volume. And plus, what in the world could a drunken old, angry man be doing at the early hours of the morning at his desk? Writing a frakking novel?

So Laura Roslin lay, still pissed off, justifying all the reasons of _why_ she was pissed at him on mental fingers.

Sure, he hadn't awaken her, but _had_ she been asleep he sure as hell would have.

Sure, it was his quarters, but he was sharing them with her—had made the offer himself several weeks ago—and he could have a little damn respect for her presence.

Sure, he was drunk, but that was the annoyance in and of itself and not an excuse.

She mentally grumbled, maybe even screamed, and clamped her eyes shut, trying not to pay attention to the obvious presence at the desk a few feet away. But any attempts to fall asleep proved futile because of her wandering mind. Silently, she wondered things like if he was looking at her or if he was still as mad as she was. Was he even mad at all? Had she been too hard on him?

Her mind travelled back to their early argument that left her cold and crying with a piece of her hair in her hands. The cancer treatments were grueling, and Cottle had warned her not to partake in any sort of activity (like an argument) that would cause her stress level to rise. She didn't always follow the doctor's orders, however.

Bill's words stung her; not the severity but the veracity.

The truth was that she _was_ afraid to die alone—that her death would be another number on her whiteboard, meaningless and insignificant, and Kara Thrace only encouraged those fears. Up until now, she—Laura Roslin—had been the leader of humanity, the Dying Leader, the one appointed by the Gods to deliver the people and bring them to the Promised Land. And then, in came Kara Thrace rising from the dead and claiming to know the way to Earth. Laura had never been one for competition, but when Kara stepped back onto the scene with her new religious leader guise, where did that leave Laura?

The scent of the pillows arose suddenly a sense of longing to be close to him, and before drifting off to sleep, she remembered wishing he'd crawl into the rack behind her and wrap his strong arms around her, surrounding her in his masculinity. Unfortunately, sleep had already claimed her before she had time to remember she was mad at him.

- - - -

Before settling in at his desk, Bill had chosen several books from the shelf to bring back with him. He sat down in his chair with the books and flicked on the desk light, pausing for a moment to study her sleeping form.

He reached for his glasses and began flipping through the different books he had retrieved. It didn't take long before his fingers had flipped to the right page. With a smile, his eyes scanned the passage he'd been looking for.

_I'll never be afraid of her. Nor do I want to be. For she is what I am, all that is and should always be._

- - - -

She awoke with a start. Her dreams had been cruel, and awaking into reality wasn't the most comforting thing either. The day before her would be tough: a meeting, treatments…and Bill.

She sat up and stretched her arms above her head before glancing around the cabin. She saw no immediate sign of him and before she had a chance to succumb to the part of her that wanted to be disappointed, she reminded herself that she hadn't forgive him quite yet.

Laura stood up and shivered. She grabbed her robe and wrapped it tightly around her cold body. A warm shower sounded absolutely divine and considering her agenda for the day, she figured it was just what she'd need.

_Actually, what I need is a good frak._

She stopped wide-eyed in her tracks. What the hell had gotten into her? But as she continued to move towards the head and reconsidered her thoughts, it began to occur to her that she had been unusually horny ever since Bill had disobeyed her direct orders several nights ago.

Once inside the head, she started the water in the shower and readied a towel for herself. She discarded her robe and sleep shirt and stepped into the warm spray, slicking her weakening hair back and letting the water cascade over her body. The tension from the night seemed to wash away and she felt herself physically relax. She grabbed a bar of soap and let it suds up in her hand before massaging it over her skin. Once she'd finished with the soap, she set the bar down and let her hands wander over the slick trail the soap had created, travelling over her breasts, squeezing them and encircling her nipples. Had she not believed her own realization earlier of an unusually high libido, her actions and her body's reaction was now living proof.

Laura gasped, and the sound surprised her. At some point while she'd been lost in thoughts, she'd let her right hand wander down and find the wet warmth between her legs. She slid her fingers inside of her, finding that her need was heightening her senses a bit more than usual.

A noise outside of the shower startled her and she quickly withdrew her fingers and shut off the water. She listened closely for a moment at the sound of a blade gliding over skin, the tap being turned on and off, and a loud clank as something was hit against the edge of the sink.

_Bill_.

Laura peeked around the edge of the wall and saw him shaving. She sighed and closed her eyes before drawing in a breath and reaching for her towel. She tucked it tightly around her before stepping outside of the shower. Keeping her eyes diverted from him, she sensed he was doing the same.

_Had he heard me?_ she wondered in embarrassment.

Bill glanced at her reflection in the mirror while he shaved as she bent over to retrieve her clothing, revealing a glorious amount of cleavage on a very wet body. He cried out in pain, blood arising on his neck, and threw down the blade in disgust.

Damn her for distracting him.

Laura stood up with her clothing in one hand, the other holding the towel securely around her frame. His outburst had surprised her and she peered over at his body bent over the sink.

"Frak. Laura, can you get me some tissue?"

She approached him curiously and saw his hand propped tightly over the right side of his neck, blooding seeping through his fingers.

"Oh my gods, Bill," she gasped, shocked at the amount of blood she saw. She ripped some paper from the roll, moving over to him to remove his hand and replace it with the wad of paper. "Come on, let me try to stop the bleeding."

"I can take it from here," he grumbled.

She swatted at his defiant hand and dabbed at his cut, her body pressed up to the side of his. He was shirtless and could easily feel her breasts against the side of his arm. She moved back to get some more tissue, returned to his side and continued to dab. At her sudden contact with his cut, he cried out and grabbed her wrist, causing her to gasp as her towel fell to the ground.

They stood there, her wrist firmly in his hand, a white towel pooled around her ankles, and Laura Roslin's wet, naked body smiling back at his approving eyes.

"It hurt," was his delayed murmur. His eyes, having journeyed down and up her body, found her face.

"Bill," she whispered. Her eyes met him in a passionate tangle.

He pulled her to him, his hands moving down her sides until they found her ass and squeezed. She let out a moan, her body pulled taut to his with his growing erection very apparent as it pushed against her stomach.

Their lips crashed against each other, mouths fighting for dominance, tongues engaged in an ardent duel. In one swift motion, he lifted her naked form and backed her against the wall behind her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, fumbling over his belt and zipper in the process. He groaned, his teeth finding her neck and nibbling on the tender skin there until the heel of her hand was rubbing against his hardness through his boxers. She thrust her hips up and down against him, her other hand travelling down his back and un-tucking his tanks before exploring the warm skin beneath.

As if on cue, a loud banging at the hatch caused him to bang his hand against the wall in anger.

"I swear to the gods," she muttered, her head in his hair, his buried in the crook of her neck.

"Who the hell could that be?" he asked, his voice muffled against her shoulder.

"Tory," Laura replied without hesitation. "I have a meeting this morning and she probably wants to brief me on the topics that will be discussed."

"For frak's sake," he grumbled. He backed away from the wall and set her down. "Get dressed and I'll cover for you," he explained, zipping up his pants and fastening his buckle back in place. He travelled to the hatch in disgust just as another set of knocks erupted. And sure enough, he opened it to be greeted with the professional smile of Tory Foster, the frakking presidential aid that did her job too well.

"Good morning, Admiral. I trust the President is awake?" she asked.

"Yes, of course. Just…getting dressed," he said, welcoming Tory in. "Can I get you some coffee?"

"No, thank you. I won't be here for long. I have some things to discuss with the President before her meeting in 0100 hours," Tory explained. She took a seat at one of the chairs as directed.

Bill travelled back to his living area and found Laura buttoning up the last few of her buttons, her nylons discarded over in a corner. He eyed them inquisitively.

"No time," she explained, following his line of sight.

"Ah," he said with a nod.

They both stood looking at the other for a moment, frustrations underlining unreadable faces. Although for the most part, the tension between them had died down, there were still some residual emotions that needed to be settled—that they had been _trying_ to settle. Bill looked down and shook his head.

He looked back up at her and paused. "You have treatments today?"

Laura nodded. "Yes, third down; a ridiculous amount to go." She smiled, turning around to retrieve her dress jacket. Bill moved towards her and snaked his arms around her waist. Surprised, she turned around in his arms and smiled up at him curiously. "Hi," she said quietly.

"Actually, I was going to say goodbye. I should get to CIC," he explained, his face soft.

"Oh," she said with a smile.

Before she had a chance to say anything more, he leaned down and kissed her gently, then pulled back, trying to read the look on her face.

"Goodbye," she said, disentangling herself from his arms and giving his hand a squeeze.

"Good luck with your meeting."

"Good luck in CIC."

They shared one last smile, and as Laura walked away from him the very domestic moment they had just shared sent butterflies throughout her stomach. As much as she wanted to be mad at him, if he kept up his behavior, she'd have no choice but to forgive him.

_Still_, she thought, taking a seat opposite of Tory, _he owes me one hell of a good orgasm_.


End file.
